Burt Rutan: An American Aviation Inovator"Breakthroughs are what define our species."-Burt Rutan http://www.scaled.com/about/burt_rutan OverviewHe was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Inc. magazine and has received countless praise from Newsweek among others. He has appeared on 60 Minutes on CBS, starred in a documentary of himself on the Discovery Channel, and possesses six honorary doctorates. He is Burt Rutan, the man who pioneered the civilian made spacecraft and has opened countless doors for the aviation community.BiographyBorn in a suburb outside Portland, Oregon on June 17, 1943, Burt spent his childhood wrapped up in aviation intersests in the small town of Dinuba, California, located close to Fresno. He flew his first solo flight at the age of sixteen and spent much of his youth building models of aeronautical machines. Rutan attended CalPoly, or California Polytechnic University, in San Louis Obispo, California, where he was very succesful, graduating third in his class in 1965 with a major in aeronautical engineering. After graduating, Burt moved on to Edwards Air Force Base, where he was a flight test engineer for seven years. Later, he moved to Newton, Kansas, where he was the director of Bede Aircraft's Bede Test Center. An ambitous man, this California grown man couldn't be satsified in this postion, so he returned to his home state in 1974. There, he created the Rutan Aircraft Factory in Mojave, California, which produced many popular aircraft (see "Rutan's Creations" section). In 1986, Burt's brother Dick and Jeana Yeager, using one of the Rutan Aircraft Factory's masterpieces, circled the globe in a 24,985 mile flight (see "Voyager/Global Flyer" section), only to have its longest flight in history record broken in 2006 by another one of the Factory's creations. After some quiet years, this incredible inventor returned to action, when in 2004, he was financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to participate in a civilian contest which would see who could make a space applicable aircraft first. Burt won (see "X Prize" section). Since these breakthroughs, Rutan has done nother except earn six honorary doctorates (see "Doctorates" section) and create his second spaceship, the succesor of the X Prize winning SpaceShip One. He now lives comfortably retired in Idaho with his wife Tonya an pet tropical bird. Rutan's CreationsSince 1974 when it opened, the Rutan Aircraft Factory has produced many noteable aircraft, at least six of which are on perminent display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The following are the most noteable creations of the Factory and Rutan:
Voyager/Global Flyer The Voyager, pictured in the top far right of the table above was the first aircraft to fly around the world non-stop. Rutan's creation flew for 24,985 miles in nine days, three minutes, and forty-four seconds. Piloted by Burt's brother Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeagar, no realtion to Chuck Yeager, this craft flew without stopping or refueling, the first ever occurance. This aircraft was powered by a prop in the back and front ends of the fusalage and the aerodynamics allowed it to fly incredibley efficiantly. After this groudbreaking success, Rutan created another aircraft in 2006 called the Virgin Global Flyer, pictured below. This time piloted by Steve Fossett, the Global Flyer completed the trip in only 67 hours, flying 26,389 miles, this feat was also the first non-stop flight around the world by a single person alone.The Virgin Global Flyer was the Voyager's (top far right of chart) succesorhttp://www.nasm.si.edu/webimages/highres/WEB10581-2006h.jpgX PrizeThe Ansari X Prize was a contest with a winning prize of $10 million which pitted the best avionics desingers against one another in a race for space. Essentially, whoever manufactured a "spaceship" that could break through Earth's atmosphere would be dubbed the winner and obtain the prize and title of champion. Followed by the Discovery Channel, the competitors where locked in fierce competition, but finally early one morning in 2004, Burt Rutan's team emergerd with two creations, SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne. The idea was that WhiteKnightOne would carry SpaceShipOne underneath its fusalage and fly it high enough so that the spaceship could clear Earth's atmosphere. In short, they were succesfull and Rutan got the $10 Million for future aircraft. Later on, his desings led to SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo, also known as Eve, which people with the money and the time will be able to fly into orbit in. As of November, 2011, about 430 future astronauts have signed up for their place in space. For further information on how the X Prize was won, check out Discovery Channel's "Black Sky: The Race for Space" and "Black Sky: Winning the X Prize" special documentaries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0aXM1LQoCQ&feature=related
Above link is footage from the X Prize winning flight of SpaceShipOne (click the "back" button when done). DoctoratesOver the years, Rutan has won six different honoary doctarates from multiple universities, see the chart below.
Doctorate
University
Year
Doctoral of Science
Daniel Webster College
1987
Honorary Doctor of Science
California Polytechnic University
1987
Doctoral of Humanities
Lewis University
1988
Doctoral of Technology
Delft University
1990
Honorary Doctoral of Engineering
University of Illinois
2006
Honorary Doctoral Degree
Free University of Brussels
2007
"Our best performance comes from structuring a specific blend of creative talent with others whose passion is to apply an innovative breakthrough to the building and testing of a real product"-Burt Rutan Works Cited
"Scaled Composites: About Us - Burt Rutan." Welcome To Scaled Composites. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. http://www.scaled.com/about/burt_rutan.
"Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne: Burt Rutan Biography." Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne - Historic Video on DVD. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.desertturtle.com/BurtRutan.html>.
http://www.scaled.com/about/burt_rutan
OverviewHe was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Inc. magazine and has received countless praise from Newsweek among others. He has appeared on 60 Minutes on CBS, starred in a documentary of himself on the Discovery Channel, and possesses six honorary doctorates. He is Burt Rutan, the man who pioneered the civilian made spacecraft and has opened countless doors for the aviation community.BiographyBorn in a suburb outside Portland, Oregon on June 17, 1943, Burt spent his childhood wrapped up in aviation intersests in the small town of Dinuba, California, located close to Fresno. He flew his first solo flight at the age of sixteen and spent much of his youth building models of aeronautical machines. Rutan attended CalPoly, or California Polytechnic University, in San Louis Obispo, California, where he was very succesful, graduating third in his class in 1965 with a major in aeronautical engineering. After graduating, Burt moved on to Edwards Air Force Base, where he was a flight test engineer for seven years. Later, he moved to Newton, Kansas, where he was the director of Bede Aircraft's Bede Test Center. An ambitous man, this California grown man couldn't be satsified in this postion, so he returned to his home state in 1974. There, he created the Rutan Aircraft Factory in Mojave, California, which produced many popular aircraft (see "Rutan's Creations" section). In 1986, Burt's brother Dick and Jeana Yeager, using one of the Rutan Aircraft Factory's masterpieces, circled the globe in a 24,985 mile flight (see "Voyager/Global Flyer" section), only to have its longest flight in history record broken in 2006 by another one of the Factory's creations. After some quiet years, this incredible inventor returned to action, when in 2004, he was financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to participate in a civilian contest which would see who could make a space applicable aircraft first. Burt won (see "X Prize" section). Since these breakthroughs, Rutan has done nother except earn six honorary doctorates (see "Doctorates" section) and create his second spaceship, the succesor of the X Prize winning SpaceShip One. He now lives comfortably retired in Idaho with his wife Tonya an pet tropical bird.
Rutan's CreationsSince 1974 when it opened, the Rutan Aircraft Factory has produced many noteable aircraft, at least six of which are on perminent display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The following are the most noteable creations of the Factory and Rutan:
Voyager/Global Flyer
The Voyager, pictured in the top far right of the table above was the first aircraft to fly around the world non-stop. Rutan's creation flew for 24,985 miles in nine days, three minutes, and forty-four seconds. Piloted by Burt's brother Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeagar, no realtion to Chuck Yeager, this craft flew without stopping or refueling, the first ever occurance. This aircraft was powered by a prop in the back and front ends of the fusalage and the aerodynamics allowed it to fly incredibley efficiantly. After this groudbreaking success, Rutan created another aircraft in 2006 called the Virgin Global Flyer, pictured below. This time piloted by Steve Fossett, the Global Flyer completed the trip in only 67 hours, flying 26,389 miles, this feat was also the first non-stop flight around the world by a single person alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0aXM1LQoCQ&feature=related
Above link is footage from the X Prize winning flight of SpaceShipOne (click the "back" button when done).
DoctoratesOver the years, Rutan has won six different honoary doctarates from multiple universities, see the chart below.
"Our best performance comes from structuring a specific blend of creative talent with others whose passion is to apply an innovative breakthrough to the building and testing of a real product"-Burt Rutan
Works Cited
"Scaled Composites: About Us - Burt Rutan." Welcome To Scaled Composites. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. http://www.scaled.com/about/burt_rutan.
"Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne: Burt Rutan Biography." Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne - Historic Video on DVD. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.desertturtle.com/BurtRutan.html>.